For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
The verse belongs to an imprecatory psalm that is a plea for divine justice. It presents poverty and need before God in prayer, including a heart wounded within with inward distress, and thereby teaches that a person asking God for help may lay bare a helpless condition and inner troubles. The psalm is predictive of tribulation on the enemies of the church, not an expression of personal revenge, and its language declares God's retributive justice. Its curses are God's pronouncement of the punishments due to wicked people, not David praying for punishment on himself; they describe justice falling on those whose lives were evil and who intended the same harm for others. The verse belongs to a plea that those who plot wickedness against the innocent should receive the fruit of their own deeds.
The verse belongs to an imprecatory psalm that is a plea for divine justice. It presents poverty and need before God in prayer, including a heart wounded within with inward distress, and thereby teaches that a person asking God for help may lay bare a helpless condition and inner troubles. The psalm is predictive of tribulation on the enemies of the church, not an expression of personal revenge, and its language declares God's retributive justice. Its curses are God's pronouncement of the punishments due to wicked people, not David praying for punishment on himself; they describe justice falling on those whose lives were evil and who intended the same harm for others. The verse belongs to a plea that those who plot wickedness against the innocent should receive the fruit of their own deeds.